Heartless
by silent song of shadows
Summary: She was an assassin from childhood, trained to never be swayed by emotions or feelings. So why would Tony be anything different? With Clint it was repayment of a debt. With him... she didn't know. But Natasha knew that she was nothing but heartless. Don't own Avengers or Marvel


Natasha prowled down one of the hallways in the Helicarrier.

It had been laughably easy to hack into the security system and place the cameras for this section on a loop. She lightly knocked on a door and received a muttered "come in" from the occupant. Clint looked awful she noticed.

That should have made her feel bad.

But Red Room training made it harder for her to act upon emotions. Natasha would identify the emotion she was feeling, analyze the situation to figure out why she was feeling that way, and then accept the emotion and act according to the expectations of the people she was with. She was heartless.

"_Is this love, Agent Romanoff?"_

"_Love is for children. I owe him a debt."_

Clint was her partner. He had given her a way away from the Red Room after they had taken away Kalina. He had given her a reason to continue and saved her from those who made her into their own killing machine.

Now she could repay the debt fully. Natasha had saved Clint from Loki's mind control. She had put her support behind him when Captain America had wanted to know if Clint was capable of joining the Avengers. The Avengers could now be Clint's reason to continue.

SHIELD was no longer an option for him. Natasha had seen what guilt did to countless people, agents and civillians alike, and knew that Clint was suffering from a heavy dose of it. He blamed himself for the deaths he had caused while being controlled by Loki. He blamed himself for Coulson's death.

Coulson's death.

Coulson had been one of two people who brought forth emotions Natasha couldn't identify. He had broken past her heartlessness like no one else had ever done. His death caused a pain that Natasha had never had before. It would have scared her, but all she was was a heartless killer.

"Get up. We're leaving."

"Fury's called me back to duty?" Clint's sarcastic tone was a mere shadow of its former self.

"I have."

SHIELD agents had never fully accepted Natasha as one of theirs. They couldn't connect with her properly. They didn't understand her and she couldn't truly understand them. For all their training, they were still people. She was a heartless murderer. They let their emotions cloud their judgement of Clint. Whenever he was seen, the agents there would instantly be on guard. No matter how discreet they were in their unease, Natasha knew that Clint knew they didn't trust them.

Clint had poured his heart and soul into SHIELD when he had joined them. Now they turned their backs on him, some of them even going out of their way to loudly accuse him of being a murderous traitor. Coulson would have stopped them and Clint could have confided in him. But with Coulson gone, there was nothing really left to tie Clint to SHIELD.

Without Clint or Coulson, there was nothing left to tie Natasha to SHIELD.

The two assassins left the Helicarrier on a secret unauthorized flight, courtesy of Tony Stark.

Tony Stark was probably the only person alive who could in any way really understand Natasha. He had been the Merchant of Death, murderer and weapons manufacterer. He became Iron Man, selfless hero and saviour of earth. Natasha had been the Black Widow, assassin and ruthless killer. She became the Black Widow, SHIELD agent and hero.

When she had met Tony the first time she had still been the killer. Tony had been fifteen then and probably didn't remember Nancy Renner. Her mission had been to seduce the younger Stark and fake his death, taking him for the Red Room's use. The mission had gone according to plan up until she succeeded fully in the seduction. Something had happened, and her defection from the Red Room was a direct result from that.

They had both changed when she met him as Natalie Rushman. She had seen the way he shunned affection from all but Pepper and Rhodey. He seemed to love the attention he got from the presses, but that was meaningless to him when compared with the opinions of those he lo- liked.

Natasha couldn't call it love.

She didn't truly know the meaning of the word.

Natasha completed her mission successfully and knew he would never really trust her after it. That shouldn't have bothered her and she didn't know why it did. He was like Coulson that way. He stirred emotions in her that she couldn't identify, but where her emotions regarding Coulson had set him up as some sort of... did she dare think it?... protector. The ones regarding Tony were even stranger.

After the aliens, Pepper had broken up with him. Natasha had found him on the roof trying to kill himself as a direct result of the crushing pain of what he saw as betrayal. It was only her extensive training that let her stay calm, replacing the arc reactor and revealing her lie about the assessment form to him.

She didn't know why she had lied.

She was heartless. Why should she have cared whether or not he became one of Fury's men? The report had ensured that Tony would never fully trust the director and that he would remain his own man, separated from SHIELD.

Separated from her.

Natasha shouldn't have cared about Tony and Pepper's relationship. Yet she felt so much anger at Pepper for the way she handled everything. She should have known what her ending their relationship that way would do! Natasha shouldn't have had to be there for Tony! Pepper should have been that anchor. Tony had clung to her and Pepper had cast him adrift.

Natasha knew she would never forgive Pepper for what she had done.

Unless Tony asked it of her.

And even then, probably not. It wasn't like Natasha cared what he thought or anything.

Natasha and Clint arrived at Stark Tower when the evening faded to night and the shadows flitted about, keeping the casual eye from noticing the dark plane landing on top of the tower. Clint looked around in confusion as Natasha led him inside to where Tony was waiting for them and chatting with Banner. The two men looked up as the spies entered.

"Evening Legolas, Natashalie!"

If nicknames actually bothered Natasha, that one would have bothered her the most. It was a constant reminder of why Tony could never trust her. But of course, a heartless assassin like her neither could nor would allow it to cause any sort of hurt.

"Some reason why you've brought me here, Tasha?" Clint asked her.

"It's 'Tasha' now, is it? Can I call you 'Tasha' too?" Tony shot her a cheeky grin.

"No." She didn't miss a beat. Having Tony call her Tasha would imply that they were closer than business acquaintances. He was only another Avenger. She had no heart for their to be anything more even if she were to ever want it.

"Anyways, Katniss, your fellow spy informed me that SHIELD has it out for you and is no longer the best option, if it could ever _be _the best option, so you're staying here as part of the Avengers!"

"And the Avengers aren't part of SHIELD?" Clint asked dryly.

"Ah, the Avengers _Initiative _was part of SHIELD, but Pepper said we don't want them suing us over copyright issues so we've got the Avengers, an independent 'superhero' organization that for some unknowable reason contains most of the former Avengers from SHIELD and is fully funded and supported by SI."

Natasha had to be mildly impressed by Tony. She had created the problems with SHIELD in the first place and now she was seeing real results. Fury wouldn't be at all happy with them, but who actually cared?

"Capsicle decided to take a road trip for a while, but he'll join when he comes back. I've made a place for him as official team leader, and I've even got Bruce here already." Tony gestured to his companion. "No one can resist the Stark charm for long."

"I strongly doubt Steve swings that way." Clint deadpanned, catching Tony completely off guard. Natasha was mildly amused. It would seem that bringing him to Tony was definitely the right idea for short term. It would be when Clint and Tony got comfortable enough around each other to team up that she had low hopes of New York remaining mostly intact.

As the Tony and Clint continued talking, Natasha silently left for SHIELD headquarters. She would have to run interference as long as possible before her resignation to keep the heat off Clint.

Tony had made the offer of being part of the Avengers to her when she had contacted him for help with Clint. She would probably take him up on it later out of boredom. SHIELD wasn't a place she had ever been enthusiastic about, but at Stark Tower she doubted there would ever be a night of boredom with Tony and Clint in the same building.

Or maybe she wouldn't go.

She really had nothing to tie her to them.

Why should she go?

Yes, Tony made her emotions run wilder than normal. But she didn't know if she wanted that.

After all, she was the Black Widow. Assassin, SHIELD Agent, Avenger. She wasn't held to anyone by emotions or physical desires. She wasn't interested in being anything more than possibly team mates with Tony. Natasha would never admit she wanted that. She couldn't know love. She couldn't let Tony in.

She was heartless.

**A/N By popular request, here is your sequel to Selfish. I had sort of considered continuing and probably will continue their story as a series of one shots, but my other two stories (Flames of the Phoenix and Shadowed Future) will take priority. **

**Requests/suggestions are very welcome. The entire series will have a Tony/Natasha pairing as the main ship, but other pairings can be voted on at my profile.**

**Thanks for reading, reviewing, voting and favouriting!**

**Shadow**


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